


ne meurs pas avant l'heure

by evening_spirit



Category: 9-1-1: Lone Star (TV 2020)
Genre: Gen, M/M, This Is Sad, based on spoilers for 1x08, but hopeful, gunshot wound, other characters mentioned in passing, warning: suicidal ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:27:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22940989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evening_spirit/pseuds/evening_spirit
Summary: The noise of the weapon discharging six feet from them reverberates inside Paul’s skull for several moments. He gasps, blinks rapidly, ringing in his ears deafening and only regains his composure a terrifyingly long blink-of-an-eye later, when TK staggers back and collides with him.
Relationships: Carlos Reyes/TK Strand, TK Strand & Paul Strickland
Comments: 11
Kudos: 194





	ne meurs pas avant l'heure

**Author's Note:**

> The title means "don't die before your time".  
> It's from Zaz's song lyrics "La lessive"

The noise of the weapon discharging six feet from them reverberates inside Paul’s skull for several moments. He gasps, blinks rapidly, ringing in his ears deafening and only regains his composure a terrifyingly long blink-of-an-eye later, when TK staggers back and collides with him.

Paul immediately realizes what happened.

“TK, you hit?” he screams at the top of his lungs, scrambling to catch a falling colleague. The shooter is still right there, in front of them, but Paul’s attention is solely on TK now. Like in slow motion, TK falls to the floor and Paul tries to hold his head, to break the inevitable impact. TK falls slowly, but Paul’s hands are slower, clumsy, unable to keep up with the synapses firing inside his brain, screaming at him to Do Something!

People around them move, scream, yell, there’s another gunshot, there’s a sound of a body being tackled to the floor and Paul rips open TK’s uniform. There’s a bright red flower blooming up on the left side of TK’s undershirt.

Paul rips that open too. Marjan is right next to him, gauze ready to staunch the bleeding and she lifts TK to take a look at his back.

“It’s through-and-through.” Good, that, at least is a relief. Also, the location of the entry wound gives hope that no major organs were hit.

The only distressing thing is the fact that TK is completely unresponsive. Paul looks at his face, at his wide-open unseeing eyes and presses two fingers to his neck and feels the warm skin jump up and down, rhythmically.

“Pulse is rapid, but steady,” he utters.

Michelle’s already there and she urges him to step aside, let her work. Nancy and Tim also move around TK with skilled proficiency and it doesn’t take more than a minute from the moment the shot sounded, to the moment TK is loaded up on a stretcher and wheeled away.

Paul exhales from the deepest bottom of his guts. Marjan’s hand is on his bicep and he can feel it tremble.

“He’s gonna be okay,” she whispers.

“Michelle, wait!” Owen rushes past them, frantic and clearly upset, but he returns a moment later, stays to supervise them clearing the scene, competent and focused, as always.

* * *

They arrive at the hospital less than half-an-hour later. Owen requested 126 be taken off the rooster, because one of their own has been injured and they gather in the lobby. Michelle’s there and she smiles when she sees them.

“He’s alright,” she tells Owen and they can all see the way he visibly uncoils. He sits down, elbows on his knees and wipes his face. Then he looks up at Michelle. “What did they tell you?”

“Not much. Just that it was a clean through-and-through, no organs or major arteries were damaged, he didn’t even lose too much blood. They’re stitching him up. I guess you can go and see him.”

Owen’s back on his feet in an instant.

“The kid’s lucky,” Judd utters after the Cap has gone through the glass door. They can all hear how much his voice is shaking. He’s kept it together, for the Cap’s sake, but now, all of a sudden, Paul and Marjan and Mateo have a two-hundred-pounds of a sobbing fireman on their hands. “I’m sorry,” he tries, as Marjan leads him to a chair, but they all tell him it’s nonsense to apologize and they hug him and Paul feels the stress of that call leave him a shaking mess just the same.

They are relieved for all of two minutes.

Owen comes back much sooner than they expected, his face grim and worried.

“What’s wrong, Cap?” Mateo is first on his feet.

“Owen?” Michelle’s also right at his side.

“They wouldn’t let me in,” Owen gripes, wriggling his hands. “They’re waiting for a consult.”

“Did they explain why?” Michelle asks and Paul can see she’s ready to go in there and drill into someone on Owen’s behalf, if what he says doesn’t measure up to her expectation.

Owen looks at her and Paul had never, ever seen his Captain this helpless.

He shrugs. “They say he’s still unresponsive.”

* * *

Several hours later they know there’s nothing physically wrong with TK. He’s stitched up and his gunshot wound is already healing. Blood loss wasn’t significant enough to cause brain damage, CT scan and MRI don’t show any traumatic injury. His eyes are open, though appear unseeing; yet he reacts to light. He gives no verbal response whatsoever and withdraws from pain. It doesn’t seem neurological, but the doctors ordered more neurological tests, which he mostly passes, one by one.

He doesn’t speak, doesn’t seem to acknowledge anyone’s presence in his room, doesn’t make a move. The doctor says it’s probably so-called shell-shock. Not in the medical sense, like when a body loses too much blood, but psychological. A shutdown. Then he asks to speak privately with Owen and they leave. Owen is gone for almost an hour.

The team is encouraged to stay with TK, though, to talk to him, one at the time. When it’s Paul’s turn – again – and he passes Mateo in the door, the kid’s cheeks are stained with tears.

“I don’t know if I can keep doing this,” Mateo tells him. “Why won’t he wake up?”

Paul wishes he had an answer.

While he seats at TK’s bedside, holding TK’s limp hand in his, Carlos comes in.

“I just heard,” he breathes out. “How bad is it?”

“Physically,” Paul sighs, “he should be home already. But mentally? He shut down, like--" a thought occurs in Paul’s head and he knows himself enough to realize this is the kind of thought he can’t keep to himself, no matter how much he doesn’t want to say it out loud. “It’s like he expected to die from that shot and his brain can’t catch up to the reality that he’s alive.”

What Carlos says then, fills in the gaps in Paul’s perception of TK.

“You think he wanted to die?”

Yes, he did. Paul looks at TK and he knows this is the correct answer.

Carlos slumps to the seat on the other side of TK’s bed and grabs his other hand, careful about the IV and at the monitor attached to it. He brushes his lips against TK’s knuckles.

“You don’t get to die, Tiger,” he whispers. “Not yet, you can’t. I know it’s hard, I know everything is so overwhelming, but you will get through this and it will get better, I promise.”

Paul stays quiet, but inside, he smacks himself upside the head. How could he not have seen this? True, TK never complained, kept up the game, but underneath that upbeat exterior, he suffered. His father was sick, TK must have worried, even if he never showed it. He helped the Old Man keep it a secret for months. Before that, there was that bad breakup in New York no one knew anything about. Keeping it all in – that must have cost him a great deal. Paul has always prided himself on noticing things and patterns everyone else missed, but here – he missed all the clues just like the rest of them.

Neither of them thought to ask how he was doing, even after the Captain had told them he was sick.

“I’m right here, TK,” Carlos keeps talking. “I’m right here with you and if you let me, I will help you see the good things, the things that make life worth living. I know right now it’s hard to believe there’s anything in this world for you. I know you’re hurting. I know you feel completely alone, or that you don’t deserve good things, but TK, believe me, this is only your brain lying to you. You deserve everything that’s good. And you have friends. See, there’s Paul, right here. Your other friends are just out the door, Marjan, Mateo. Even Judd, I know you like him even if you won’t admit it. I am here.” The rhythm of TK’s heart picks up and Paul tears his gaze away from Carlos’s anguished face just in time to see TK close his eyes. A tear escapes down the side of his face. His breath hitches a little. “You can hear me.” Carlos kisses his knuckles again. “You are here. And you will fight. And I will fight right along with you.”

He stands up, pulls away the cables attached to TK and leans over his face. He places his hand on TK’s cheek in a soft caress, then leans closer and gently kisses the side of his forehead.

TK’s hand, the one Carlos held earlier, lifts searching for an anchor. Finds Carlos’s side. TK lets out a quiet breath, almost like he wants to say something.

There is a long road ahead of him. No easy fix to such deep mental wounds, but Paul knows he is going to heal.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading :)  
> I appreciate all the comments. They make me very happy


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